Simone de Beauvoir’s relationship with her readers was a mutually demanding collaboration. Why did I write all of this to you? Because I have never felt such a human closeness as I do with you, Madame, whose writing can express the whole gamut of emotions. — from a 1972 letter to Simone de Beauvoir In the fall […]
Omnisexual, gynosexual, demisexual: What’s behind the surge in sexual identities?
“Language fixes reality, it sets reality,” says Proust. “It paralyzes it, in a way. It puts it in a box, under a tag. The problem with that is it doesn’t move. It negates or denies any instability or fluidity.” In 1976, the French philosopher Michel Foucault made the meticulously researched case that sexuality is a social construct […]
That Obscure Subject of Desire
Patriarchy engenders our values, desires and possibilities. It’s time to outgrow these gendered constraints on our becoming. Let’s talk about pleasure. I keep hearing a particular gripe about this cultural shift, and maybe you have too. Some people have been calling this movement Puritanical or a return to Victorian values, where men can’t behave or […]
